Princess Leia Organa : Your friend is quite the mercenary. I wonder if he really cares about anything. Or anybody. [she stalks out]
Luke Skywalker : [calling after her] I care. Luke Skywalker - IMDB.com
This is a follow up/response to my last post. "Who gives a crap?"
I wanted to post a follow up because we don't live in a single instant. We are time travelers. Always moving forward.
“You can't cross the same river twice, I always say.”
Granny Weatherwax - Equal Rites
or perhaps you'd like a more traditional, quote.
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
Heraclitus - Brainy Quotes
So I'm not the same man that I was two weeks ago when I made that post. In fact things changed rather quickly. Within a day or two. But those moments when I feel that post, I tend to forget that these posts exist. And if I do remember them, it's sometimes hard to not resent them, get angry, or dismiss them. Brandon Sanderson says something about that in his book Oathbringer.
“He felt good lots of days. Trouble was, on the bad days, that was hard to remember. At those times, for some reason, he felt like he had always been in that darkness, and always would be.”
-Kaladin, Oathbringer
We go numb, or we want to. We forget what the world looks like outside of our funk. The moment takes over.
Why? There are a number of theories about that. Fight or flight, survival brain, anxiety, predetermined response, etc. I don't know which one is right. I just know what happens to me.
In the darkness, in the hurt, in the funk, I can't see out. And what's worse, in those moments, I don't want to.
There's a piece of advice that goes like this, "You could if you wanted to. You have free will. You're choosing your pain." And I know that.
Unfortunately, for me, the problem doesn't seem to be about what I know. At least not in that way. I know I have the choice. In fact, I'm even more upset that I'm upset because I know I shouldn't be. I'm smarter than that, and the feelings still take over.
Now, I've done a bit of therapy*, and CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) is something that's helped me. It helps kind of take care of the problem "upstream" as they say. And it can help in the moment. I'll do a full post on it sometime, probably a couple because it has been so useful to me. But here's the overview.
Our brains do stuff when something happens. It's pretty amazing. A lot of times, they even kick it into autopilot. We can react to things before we consciously know what's going on. That can be helpful. Especially in a dangerous situation. Our brain managed to keep us alive once when we were on the top rung of a ladder. So the next time we get up there, our brain is pre-programmed to watch out for that as a danger. If we refuse to go up a ladder because our brain is getting that program ready, then we reinforce the perceived threat. The more we do that, the stronger the brain's response is to that particular threat (real or not). So our brain avoids danger by staying away from danger. And soon we can't even look at a ladder without getting nervous.
That's probably simplified, but it's how I currently understand the basic principle.
The problem comes in when our brain responds to something in a way that is inappropriate. We went to a friend's house once and we were embarrassed. So we don't go back again. We were stressed and overwhelmed and yelled at our friends and then they all came and gave us hugs. So next time we're stressed and overwhelmed, we start to feel like yelling. We had someone hurt us in a significant way. So our brain develops the "distrust" algorithm whenever a similar trigger comes along.
CBT is designed to kind of attack these autopilot algorithms that have kept us safe, but are now being triggered in other circumstances that may not seem connected.
I'm in a store and when I pick up an avocado, I suddenly feel anxious. I put the avocado down and have to take a few breaths and force myself to stay in the store.
What?
I like avocados. I don't particularly like all guacamole. (Well I didn't, but I've grown to enjoy many of them.) But there is nothing in my history about avocados that should make me nervous. Why is this happening?
It turns out that the guy on the other side of the produce stand who just picked up a green pepper, yeah, he's a dead ringer for the guy that someone special cheated on me with...multiple times. I went into a spiral of depression each time getting worse. My brain knows that. It remembers the crying, the hurting, the suppression, the anger, the unexpected rage, the darkness. My brain doesn't want that to happen again. So what does it do? It starts giving me warnings. Starts some of the subroutines. It's a good brain, so it does that without me even realizing what's going on.
Who's a good brain? You. You're a good brain. Yes you are!
The problem is, the perceived threat isn't a real threat. That guy across the produce section isn't the guy. After a second of awkward staring out of the corner of my eye I can easily tell that it's not him. My brain is going into overdrive protective mode like a helicopter parent on (well...I was going to say steroids, (Ugh, autocorrect is telling me that I spelled steroids wrong, but I totally know it's right.) but that seems too cliché.) So a helicopter parent on Michael Bay. Or maybe Liam Neeson, or to be more inclusive, a helicopter parent on Danai Gurira (You'll have to scroll down and look at the Okoye section).
So, enter CBT.
In as few words as I can (and you can tell that I don't do few words) I will give you the steps.
- Recognize the feeling you're having.
- Give it a name and say it
- Try to identify the cognitive distortion (thinking error) that is feeding the feeling.
- Think about what you did last time you had this feeling. If you can, consider an alternative response. (Last time I was freaked out like this, I threw the fruit at the guy and ran away. This time maybe I'll put the fruit down and talk to him and prove that it's not that guy. Umm, are you serious? I'm not doing that. I'm still fighting to stay in the store. Okay, maybe...)
- Alternative actions - Recognizing that the completely rational or brave thing to do might be too much, consider trying something else that you didn't before and see if it's effective. (Maybe this time I just put the fruit down and walk to another section of the store. I can come back and get avocado's at the end of my shopping trip. Oh, Ok. Yeah. I guess that is better than throwing things.)
- Ride out the feelings. Yeah, they suck. It probably won't be easy. Maybe you need to call a friend. Maybe you need to get yourself a snow cone. But know that these feelings will probably go away because they have before.)
- Tons of other skills that can be used to help. I'm just gonna link to this page again, because they explain it pretty well.
So this may not be your answer. Maybe it's not even close. But it's something that helped me. And even if it's not your answer, I just wanted you to know that I'm okay right now. Because sometimes we're not. Sometimes we don't want to give a care. And sometimes we do.
-Good luck.-
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